Posted on 07/09/2002 10:43:24 AM PDT by Tancredo Fan
Singer's remark riles Hispanics -- Greeley debates 'English' comment
By Michael Riley
Denver Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 09, 2002
A country western singer who told his audience at the Greeley Independence Stampede that immigrants should learn to speak English ignited an emotional debate in a community that has seen an influx of Hispanics over the past decade.
Warner Brothers recording star Chad Brock said Monday that his comments were meant to express his "pride in being American." But Hispanic leaders said they were racist and the failure of Stampede organizers to condemn them shows the refusal to embrace newcomers.
Brock stepped on stage Friday to belt out hits like "Lighting Does the Work," but he salted his performance with some sharp opinions.
In a speech between sets, Brock said he was tired of having to adapt to the widening influence of the country's newcomers. "You are coming to our country. We don't speak Russian. We don't speak Spanish. We speak English here," Brock told an audience of 7,000, according to the Greeley Tribune. While many Hispanics in the audience walked out, people who attended the event said many non-Hispanics cheered.
Brock, a former pro wrestler, said Monday that the comments came out of an honest patriotic fervor, inspired in part by a recent court decision declaring the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional.
"I'm not a racist. I wasn't directing the comments toward any particular group. I was speaking my mind as an American" during the Fourth of July holiday, Brock said.
"But I had no idea there were so many Hispanics in Greeley," he said. "I didn't mean to offend anybody."
Hispanic leaders said "offend" doesn't even begin to cover it.
"His comments were bigoted, inflammatory and hateful," said Roberto Cordova, a local college professor.
The issue goes deeper than Brock, said Jorge Amaya, director of the Northern Colorado Latino Chamber of Commerce. "The problem isn't what Brock said. The problem is that our community leaders didn't step up to condemn it."
At a news conference Monday, the Hispanic leaders demanded an apology from city officials, the event's corporate sponsors and Stampede organizers. They said this isn't the first time the Stampede has offended the city's growing Hispanic population.
Citing poor ticket sales, Stampede organizers last year canceled the fiesta section of the annual event.
Stampede marketing director Kyle Holman said organizers wanted to make the fiesta more inclusive and renamed it Family Night.
"Mr. Brock has the right of free speech just like every other American," Holman said. "But his opinion aren't necessarily the opinions of the Greeley Stampede."
But some here said they share Brock's sentiments.
According to census figures, Greeley's Hispanic population nearly doubled in the 1990s, as immigrants, many with limited English skills, took jobs in the region's meat packing plants and feedlots.
As the ethnic makeup of schools and neighborhoods shifts, some residents say they feel left out. Language has become both a divide and a flashpoint.
"If we're going to communicate, everybody needs to speak the same language," said Billie Messner, a patron at a local coffee shop.
Greeley City Manager Leonard Wiest said the city is working to accommodate newcomers.
Brock said Monday that while he's sorry if his comments offended anyone, he won't apologize.
"I had the guts to speak out, but I think a lot of people feel the same way," he said.
This singer is actually being kind, he's not saying get these illegals outta here, but rather if you come to America, learn the language. My reaction is- deport them, and many of these problems will subside.
Then you say that the statement that illegals have no interest in learning the language makes perfect sense, followed by a statement that the first thing that anyone who moves to another country would want to do is learn the language.
So, you tell me my statement is wrong, then you agree with it.
Now, explain to me why you would want an illegal alien to learn the language at all? I would imagine that you would want an illegal alien deported whether he learns English or not.
"Please refrain from telling me what I think. I have made no argument about the legality of the incorporation of NM into the US."
Okay, let's see...the "newcomers", presumably of the white, English-speaking variety, were "illegal" at the time they settled in New Mexico, but am I to understand that they became "legal" by the time the state was incorporated? Is that you, Paul Begala? Or James Carville? Or George Stephanopolous? What is your definition of the word "is", by the way?
I'm not telling you what you think, I'm just pointing out how your "illegal newcomer" statement jives with the "illegal occupation" claims of the Arabs in Israel. It's not my fault if you post comments without thinking them through beforehand.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
"I'm not a racist. I wasn't directing the comments toward any particular group. I was speaking my mind as an American" during the Fourth of July holiday, Brock said."
"You are coming to our country. We don't speak Russian. We don't speak Spanish. We speak English here," Brock told an audience of 7,000, according to the Greeley Tribune."
Mr. Brock was addressing his comments to immigrants, defined as people who move here legally, not people who sneak in.
Once again, why would you care whether illegal immigrants learn English or not? They need to go back home, not stay here and assimilate.
You're either making things up, or having difficulty comprehending other people's posts. Show me where I said illegals not learning English makes sense?
For all we know, Mr. Brock doesn't even realize the bulk of those not learning the language are illegals, but I suspect he does. You have to be another planet, or in Washington not to.
BTW, the writer uses the word "immigrants", Brock just called them "newcomers". The press also refers to illegal aliens as undocumented workers, and migrants. Anything but what they are- lawbreakers. And if there weren't 10+ million of them here, imposing their culture on us, stories like this one wouldn't even exist, and you know it.
"...illegals have no interest in learning the language..."
170 posted on 7/9/02 7:44 PM Eastern by Reaganwuzthebest
"Now, stop and think for a second, that doesn't even make any sense."
179 posted on 7/9/02 8:26 PM Eastern by Luis Gonzalez
"...the illegals have no interest in learning the language..."---you.
"Now, stop and think for a second, that doesn't even make any sense.---me.
"Yes it does..."---you again. Then:
"The FIRST thing anyone who moves to another country would want to do is learn the language.
186 posted on 7/9/02 8:49 PM Eastern by Reaganwuzthebest
I'm not the one confused here, it seems that you are.
No, but it becomes our business when they expect to read ballots in a language other than English, or road signs, or other necessary materials to a common public.
And having grown up on the border in the El Paso area, I disagree with you about New Mexico, Dr. I was born in 1971, and I remember New Mexico well, as my father was born and raised there. You know as well as I do that it is a fairly recent phenomenon that illegals are requesting everything be catered to them in Spanish.
What difference does it make to you whether illegal aliens learn English and assimilate, they jave TO GO, not assimilate.
PS---Mr. Brock mentioned Spanish AND Russian.
We have an illegal Russian immigrant problem?
BTW, stories like this have ALWAYS existed, with every single wave of immmigrants.
"Measures of great temper are necessary with the Germans," Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1753. "Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant, stupid sort of their own nation, and . . . 'tis almost impossible to remove any prejudices they entertain. . . . Few of their children in the country learn English . . . and of the six printing houses in the province, two are entirely German, two half-German, half-English. . . . Advertisements intended to be general are now printed in Dutch [i.e., Deutsch] and English; the signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages, and in some places only German. They begin of late to make all their . . . legal writings in their own language, which . . . are allowed in our courts, where the German business so increases that there is continual need of interpreters."
"Stop the flow of Germans into Pennsylvania, Franklin warned, or "they will soon so outnumber us, that . . . we will not in my opinion be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious."
A few generations after Franklin agonized over immigration from Germany, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was worrying about the influx from Central and Southern Europe. To slow it, he proposed a literacy requirement -- one that immigrants from Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Italy would be less likely to meet.
"The races most affected by the illiteracy test are those whose emigration to this country has begun within the last 20 years," Lodge explained in March 1896, "races with which the English-speaking people have never hitherto assimilated, and who are most alien to the great body of the people of the United States."
Let's not even get into the Irish...
The "yes it is" was in answer to your statement it didn't make sense that illegals don't want to learn the language. Yes my statement does make sense because they're not doing it as I and others have pointed out to you.
I'm saying in case you don't understand that you're wrong, illegals have no desire to learn English, and even though you think it makes sense for them to do so in fear if they don't, they'll be found out by the INS and deported, I'm saying they have nothing to worry about because the INS isn't coming for them. They know it, could care less about assimiliating and in fact expect us to adapt to them.
In my opinion, Mr. Brock didn't go far enough.
I guess I should have ladled the sarcasm on a little thicker. Believe me I'm on your side.
PS---While you're busy complaining that the INS isn't doing anything to stop illegal aliens, they threw @1, 235,000 of them back across the southwest border in 2001, under the Bush administration.
LOL! You think he had them Germans pegged?
Yeah, let's not, especially since most of them came legally. For the 10,000 or so that are here illegally, well then I guess when they're found out they'll have to go.
Again, slowly this time so you comprehend...if you have 10 million illegals in the country, and most do not speak English, people are going to want to know why. You conveniently want to keep the discussion on legal immigrants when you know the friction is not so much from them, but from the illegals. Remove the lawbreakers, and the assimiliation process will occur much quicker and smoother as it has in the past.
Are so called hispanic leaders telling latins in mexico that the USA is a big fruit basket, and all you have to do is run up here and take some of it?
Why isnt INS working to deport illegals rather than welcome them?
Illegals don't need to learn the language. They need to get out of our country.
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